Technology Tools World Class Centers Utilize
What does a world-class center have from a technology standpoint? What do the high-end centers have? If you had an unlimited budget to set up a call center, here are some of the fun tools you would have to have:
Omnichannel Support
I understand there is some confusion between omni-channel and multi-channel, and there is a difference. Multi-channel means you have the capabilities to take different platforms such as voice, chat, email, SMS, and social media, but Omni-channel means you can handle all of those different inquiries within the same session. You could take an inbound call as you are doing a chat session, and when all that data enters your CRM, it encapsulates it.
Work-Force Management
The second thing a world-class center would have is WFM, or Work-Force Management. This is in regard to software. Work-Force Management software will analyze the stats of your reps and build forecasts and criteria for how you want your service levels and handle times to look throughout the week. It will give you a real-time staffing of what you need to do by interval, and how many reps you need per interval. With it comes associate efficiency compliance. If your WFM finds anything or anyone outside of the forecasts that it set up, it will tag the rep so management can see on their dashboards which reps may not be performing up to par. You can also use that WFM information to help you better schedule your reps and keep more consistent QA Scores throughout the day. So, you want to have a tool that can make sure you have the right amount of assets or the right amount of people for the proper volume that is coming in. Be within 10% of where your most efficient timeframes are based on call volume and how many reps you have.
Analytics
Analytics are a relatively new tool. You can use it to talk about your customer journey, how efficient your reps are being, and digging into another layer of your quality aspect by really knowing what your customers are even calling about. Customer surveys are outdated, especially because the ones filling out these surveys are usually the ones that are especially ticked! With analytics, you see every single call, keywords are picked out, and it is building out profiles for your call center. For Expivia, analytics have made a world of difference, and not just in the scores of our agents, but in marketing data.
Self-Service Tools
A self-service tool could really help your call center streamline its efficiency; if someone is calling in for something really quick and painless, a physical rep does not need to waste their time handling it if it can be done using an IVR. However, self-service CANNOT be your service model. You should only be using them as a helpful addition to your center. I am not anti-chatbot, anti-IVR, or anti-AI in any sense. When any caller needs help outside of the self-service realm, it simply must go to an agent.
Advanced Reporting
It is surprising to me to see customer service professionals that do not have real-time reporting. You want a dashboard that at least has service levels, calls in queue, a skill summary for the reps, agent status, and how many calls came in for the day. A world-class center however would have an advanced set of reporting. They are able to bring third-party/ non-telephony data into the equation as well.
QA/QM
It is especially important that your reps have something to look back on and get feedback from, and that’s where Quality Assurance and Quality Management platforms come into play. To be honest, the QA/QM platforms we have here are not the most advanced. It is a homegrown platform where we take our customer’s scoring sheets and we create a form to overlay with our analytics. This way we can flag problems and continue to monitor so that we can continue to give proper feedback.
Other Fun Tools:
Voice Authentication: You’ll see voice authentication a lot in the financial services world and it can help to save 5-20 seconds per call.
Robotic Automation: Can handle a lot of the after-call work processes such as auto-filling forms with previously saved information. Gamification: A world-class center will have reps aiming for certain metrics in a way that they can enjoy without burning themselves out. They can play games, bet with & against each other, and earn prizes or even vacation days. It brings up the quality of their workday and the quality of their lives!
Not all of this is absolutely necessary! At Expivia, we have Gamification, Omni-Channel Platforming, Work-Force Management, speech analytics, and a bit of self-service. We do not have voice authentication or RPA, and our Quality management is our own proprietary system. Your budgets play an important part, and always prioritize!
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